Learning Without Scars
As a third-generation educator, it is easy to say that teaching and training are in the blood for Ron Slee. From his beginnings as a coach, through his time at McGill University, Ron developed a foundation for the work he does today. From working within dealerships, to operating a consulting company, creating a training business and running twenty groups, Ron has been directly involved in this Industry since 1969. Ron has been known as the industry expert for years, and has brought this expertise to bear through his training programs. Today, Ron provides specialized, job function based internet based subject specific classes, job function skills assessments, as well virtual seminars and webinars. These courses are designed for manufacturers and their dealers, as well as independent businesses in the construction equipment, light industrial, on-highway, engine, and agricultural industries through Learning Without Scars (www.LearningWithoutScars.com). This platform is a continuation of the work begun by Quest, Learning Centers which was established in 1996. This training is aimed at improving dealer parts and service operations through qualified people that are knowledgeable in using operational metrics and current market and operational best practice methods.
Learning Without Scars
The Game-changing Role of AI in Equipment Management
Ready to step into the future of equipment management? Prepare to be wowed as Dale Hanna, founder and president of Foresight Intelligence, introduces us to an AI-powered, voice-enabled platform that's set to be a game-changer. Deep dive into a world where manual input becomes a thing of the past, real-time equipment location is the norm and work orders, utilization, and inspections are managed seamlessly despite language barriers, even underground.
Hear us navigate the ins and outs of this revolutionary platform that simplifies data management and tracking, making fluid analysis and oil sampling a breeze. Listen as we explore how it allows users to set up preventive maintenance programs and operate segmented work orders, assigning job codes to different technicians. We also discuss the exciting potential of autonomous machines and how this technology could be the stepping stone. Join us on this exciting journey into the future of AI in equipment management. This isn't just a peek into what's coming; it's an up-close look at the technology that's about to redefine the industry.
Visit us at LearningWithoutScars.org for more training solutions for Equipment Dealerships - Construction, Mining, Agriculture, Cranes, Trucks and Trailers.
We provide comprehensive online learning programs for employees starting with an individualized skills assessment to a personalized employee development program designed for their skill level.
Aloha and welcome to another candid conversation. I'm pleased to have with me today Dale Hannah, the founder and president of Foresight Intelligence, who has been a partner and friend for a long time and a pretty knowledgeable revolutionary reformer in the industry. Good afternoon, mr Hannah, good to see you.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much. Thank you for your invite.
Speaker 1:I wanted to use this discussion, this conversation, for you to introduce, if you will, your new product, and maybe you can talk a little bit of the evolution of the company and how it came to where you are now and how you see the future a little bit. But I'd really like to concentrate on the fleet intelligence tool you're creating, which it sounds exciting as hell. So the ball is yours.
Speaker 2:Oh, thank you so much. I'll give it a try. So the latest release we have is the world's first AI powered voice enabled equipment management platform. So you can within our full featured equipment management platform. Now you can just talk to it. So, rather than trying to type and scroll, you can push a button and say where is machine one, two, three, does it need PM, do an inspection, has it been used? So on, so forth. So a lot of functions that used to require input by hand or typing you could just do with voice.
Speaker 2:And the reason this came about was when there was a connexal. It was a Saturday, it was quieter and I was thinking we had a lot of customers and prospects came and every feature they have asked for we had already. I was thinking what can we do even more to help our customers? And one of the things that has been done you're in the industry of training, teaching, and has been the training part. As you know, in our industry our customers are really really busy when they get sort of a project to fix a highway or bridge. They got to move 600 pieces of equipment there and they don't have time to learn a software and that has always been sort of something we wanted to solve. The software actually at this point pretty much does everything they've mentioned and wanted, but the learning is a harder part.
Speaker 2:So from there I thought well, we can just do it by voice. There's no training required. You open up the app, push a button, you can talk to it. Then we made a multi language and that is to aim at the job shortage. Our customers are experiencing massive job shortage, right? So if we can make everybody work faster, we can make people whose first native language is not English work just as fast with no effort on their part. We do all the heavy lifting. We figured that would be something really cool, so we invested heavily into AI to make that happen. So we're really happy we pushed it out.
Speaker 1:So you mentioned the full package. What is the full package that foresight intelligence provides?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that covers essentially every area of equipment management. So, from tracking, having all your equipment in one place, whether they have OEM, telematic devices, third party, ours however, you can have everything in one place. You can do inspections, you can get fluid analysis, you can manage PN, you can issue work orders and you can manage utilization from a single machine perspective or from a job site perspective, and you can have all those things sent to the users that they need to make decisions based on it, and they don't even actually need to log in.
Speaker 1:And it's all dependent on sensors, on the equipment and telematics.
Speaker 2:It's a, that's a huge part of it and that is very correct. The inspections are also very important in our world because some of the stuff inspection will find it ahead of the sensors. If a hose is going to go bad, the sensors will pick it up. It has gone bad, but the inspection will say, well, we need to replace that, change that.
Speaker 1:So let's go down through all of those things for the audience that might not be familiar with what you do. When you talk tracking, you know where every machine for your customer is geographically Right. Yes, and that's a satellite type of feed, or how do you? How do you drive that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so there are satellites. Yes, the majority of it comes from cell information, cell towers, and so they get the location. You are very correct, the location in general comes from satellite, then the information is set via cell signal to our server.
Speaker 1:And that, if I am understanding this right, that comes across in the same technology as a text message, does not a telephone call. Is that correct? Correct, very much so, meaning that we do not have the dead spots that you do with cell phones, with texting.
Speaker 2:Some dead spots still exist. Yes, so some of our customers are working on solar farms, working on building roads where there is none, and so in those scenarios, yeah, they still exist. Okay, and the only reason I'm not here you can choose the, you can actually choose the satellite option. Now you have no dead spot.
Speaker 1:Okay, and then the other thing that I was trying to allude to is that text messaging also works underground. With mines not to the full extent, but at 50, 100 feet they can get text messages underground, to my knowledge.
Speaker 2:Sometimes it would help with Wi-Fi Was the help of Wi-Fi?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, they probably put a booster in the shaft. Yeah, Okay, so you can track every brand, irrespective of the system. So if brand A has this telematics logic and brand B has a different one, it doesn't matter to you at all.
Speaker 2:Yes, that's actually our sweet spot. We started as a business intelligence company 14 years ago. We stayed in the equipment industry, so our focus has always been data. How do you keep the data clean? How do you monitor it? How do you use the data to be helpful? How do you consume very different data in different structures and make it very useful to people? And that is becoming more and more important nowadays because more and more manufacturers have the equivalent already pre-installed with telematics. That's one aspect Right, so you don't need always do third-party. The other thing is that the number of data points per machine has increased exponentially compared to 10 years ago, when back then it was a location hours fuel consumption. So now you can get 100 data points easily.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's rather remarkable. So tracking is one piece. Inspections you provide an inspection tool that is on a tablet, a cell phone, a laptop, or how does that work?
Speaker 2:Yeah, tablet or cell phone.
Speaker 1:Okay, and is it user-designed as to what's going to be inspected, or do you create the template, or how does that get established?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you can make template on however you want to have as many templates as you want. Then they can be assigned to a certain group of machines, certain type of machines, so you can have different inspections for crane, for excavator and, what is really cool for us, our team has done an amazing job. We pushed out conditional inspection so you can be super efficient If it's a yes, skip, if it's a no, take pictures or ask more questions. So that's something that has been in the works for a long time, so now it's available.
Speaker 1:So let me try and see if I'm understanding that, through the tracking and telematics, you will send an oral message to somebody who's logged in and asked a question that will say there's an inspection needed on this.
Speaker 2:For this reason, If you ask in our app, does this machine or does machine one, two, three need inspection, they will tell you, yes, it does. I know, take you there. You want to start now.
Speaker 1:Okay. So let's back up a little bit, because when I come to work this morning, can I do a search of my fleet and say is there anything that's necessary? Are there any inspections that need to be performed today?
Speaker 2:Yes, you can do that. You can also say are there any inspections that need to be performed within five miles of me, or?
Speaker 1:next week? Next week? Okay, so it's all user dependent. That they can set the parameters? Yes, it can. And do they do that orally?
Speaker 2:They can do that orally. We are adding more and more functionality to that that can be done so orally. All those functionality exists, has been existing in the program. Our voice enable part is very similar to chat GPT. Every week, more gets added, more gets added Got you.
Speaker 1:That way, it becomes more and more precise.
Speaker 2:Able capable.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay. So then how does fluid analysis, oil sampling and fluid analysis fit in?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that's the. If you come from the cat world, there's a condition monitoring. I think that's a phrase coined by Caterpillar. So you have the fluid analysis, inspection, pm and the fault codes. So fluid analysis we're connected to several labs and so the information can come over electronically directly into the system. Then we organize with the machine. So when people look at a machine they can look at holistically Is there any PM, is there any fault codes? Inspection found problems and fluid analysis.
Speaker 1:Okay, so then that also leads to you having the preventative maintenance programs for various brands, or does the dealer give you that data? How do you manage the PM programs?
Speaker 2:And so we can. There's a standard set in our system. In our industry it might be 250 hours, 500 hours, 1000, so on and so forth. So if a customer wants to load very detailed, specific one, they absolutely can. And there's no limitations on how many PM programs you load. So for a service vehicle or a pickup truck, for example, you can have one for the tires, one for the oil change and one for the license, one for whatever. So it's pretty common in our system you would have multiple ones for each piece of equipment.
Speaker 1:To my knowledge, nobody else has that tool that crosses all brands. Is my understanding correct? You're still the only one that has this?
Speaker 2:As far as we know, we will be the broadest, so we connect to over 60 plus manufacturers right now. So if you have equipment that are newer and those would have telematics, so you want to point to our system, it's literally a matter of hours If you have all the logins. We put it in every single beginning.
Speaker 1:So if I'm looking at, let's say, a rental industry, so I have a business that has 5, 700 machines that are being rented. This tool is terrific for me to manage my asset that the customer is using. Am I seeing that properly?
Speaker 2:You're saying it perfectly. So not only that, we provide the platform if you need, and white label for you as a rental company. Your customer can log in and see the machines they're renting.
Speaker 1:Okay Now the next point that you mentioned is that the system will also open a work order, so that means you're able to connect to a whole bunch of different business systems. You're doing that through an API.
Speaker 2:Is that correct? Yes, you are exactly right. Yes, we connect through API open in the business systems or some people just use our system. They just log into business system at the end. That's an option as well.
Speaker 1:That's what I was thinking. So, and not just staying at labor for the moment, the first time I would need to touch my corporate business system is when your tool says we're going to open the work order. And can you open a work order that's segmented as a result of the inspection?
Speaker 2:Absolutely Okay, and you can assign different segments to different technicians.
Speaker 1:Correct Now. Are you putting job codes on those segments? You can, yeah, and so you're going to let every user set up their own job codes, or you're going to have one generic set that you're going to use. What do you do? Have you gone down that?
Speaker 2:path. I'm not 100% sure. So if we have a default set or let people do their own, so our system is designed in such a way for most things like that. If you put it into Excel form, there's an import function. It's just imports are right in. Okay, so I'm pretty sure right now we're not providing the default Right.
Speaker 1:And there is a generic caterpillar, as an example, calls an engine 1000. John Deere calls it 0400. Kamatsu has an X in front of it. Everybody has their own convention and that's why I created a default for that years and years ago, because I didn't find any dealer number one that was one brand and I didn't find any customers that were one wealth, a few customers that are one brand. Okay, so yes, then you got all the reporting on the back end on machine utilization, how many hours work, how many RPMs, etc. That you know existed in the engine, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Speaker 2:This is kind of cool, dale, this is kind of cool. Yes, we are also dealing with some of the environmental data as well, right, emission data and all that. Oh yeah, we continue to evolve. It's very interesting.
Speaker 1:Sure, well, once you yeah, it's like the old days. You know, we got systems were developed by. You know, somebody created a computer system and they it was at a dealership and somebody acquired that computer system, just like we have today, and then that computer system had a bunch of dealers that would meet and the dealers would tell the computer people what they needed to have and that's how the product got developed. That stopped about 20 years ago. We don't have that development anymore.
Speaker 1:We've got reports coming out to Wazoo. We don't have an operating tool at any of the major dealer management systems, dealer business system companies saying what here I've got a thousand reports. These 300 have never been used in the last month. Or these five have been used a thousand times a day for you know, the last 20 years. We haven't other than we don't even have that efficiency in those systems. And in for SAP or Oracle or JD Edwards or Microsoft Dynamics, blah, blah. None of them have that. So this tool would be used anytime and every time somebody from the dealership touches a machine or the machine sends a message saying I need help.
Speaker 2:Yes, or coming from the lab, based on fluid analysis. So it's basically driven by four factors Either somebody go and does an inspection. You find something wrong, or PM, which is our base in general. Or thought codes the machine is saying I need help, just like you said. Or from the lab.
Speaker 1:So let's stop on labor for a second and shift over to parts. So the same same trigger can come orally. I need to do maintenance next week on this machine. It's a $500 service. Give me a list of parts I need. Is that part and parcel of the package as well?
Speaker 2:You're one step ahead of us. That's. That functionality exists in the program already. I'm not sure we're turned on the voice part yet. Email me the list of parts so you can just open up somewhere else or email somebody else the list of parts. Yeah, the list of parts shouldn't go back orally because then somebody would have to transcribe it.
Speaker 1:You'd have to be able to send it straight into the system somewhere you can copy that into work orders and somebody else can just fulfill the part.
Speaker 2:Okay, so I have 10 machines.
Speaker 1:I want your full system. I want to be able to do all of this stuff orally. How do you sell it? Is it a monthly, monthly contract? How do you do it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we right now are not even charging for the AI functionality because we're so excited and the world as a whole haven't figured out how to charge for AI, so we decided to just let everybody who are our customers just have it for now, and we continue to take feedback.
Speaker 1:Okay, so if I buy, your system for 10 machines, whether it's AI or non-AI? You charge by machine, by machine hours by machine hours by machine hours by time period. How do you charge for it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, by machine, number of machines and per month, and there's different levels depending on what you need.
Speaker 1:If I wanted to say I have one machine and that's probably your most expensive, and I wanted to use all of what we talked about tracking, inspections, triggers, fluid analysis, opening all of that. How much would that cost me for one machine for a month? Ballpark $8, a machine $8 a month If I had 10 machines.
Speaker 2:That'd probably still be $8. 100 machines yeah, so It'd still be $8.
Speaker 1:Okay, okay so there's no, I think we have Okay. So I need to talk to you about raising prices. You're much too inexpensive.
Speaker 2:That's great. Nobody told me that. Yeah, I know we want to make it. The reason it's $8 all the way through for quite a bit is we don't have customers that have one machine.
Speaker 1:Would it be beneficial to charge by the machine hours?
Speaker 2:Possible. That's a new idea. We haven't thought about it.
Speaker 1:I really believe our world is moving to what I'm calling subscription services. I'll deliver parts within a 50-mile, 100-mile, 250-mile radius $20, $40, $60 or something. I'll give you a five-year warranty on repairs that are greater than $5,000 or $40. I'll guarantee a 24-hour response of a field service technician. I'll guarantee $48 parts availability and all of these things will have a charge, to the point that I believe the dealer, the distribution channel, will take responsibility of the equipment away from the machine owner and let the machine owner concentrate on the work they're doing laying down road or digging a trench or whatever. It is Absolutely so. You're ahead of everybody on this one as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but we're not as far as you're thinking by the hour. I was thinking there was a product we had where we're going to charge it based on the hours I think in the industry, we'll eventually get there. I think it was a Toyota SLOKE and powered by the hour. They'll eventually get there.
Speaker 1:Okay, Well, the other part of that is in a mine site, which is becoming pretty autonomous, or a large farm, which is also becoming autonomous and not daylight dependent and not weather dependent in certain applications. Charging $8 for a machine that puts $500, $1000, $2000, $8000 on in a year disadvantages you.
Speaker 2:Yes, absolutely. I think that also, it's a revolution. So when your machine becomes all autonomous, there's a different sets of requirements. So what do you need to monitor Is going to change? A lot of things are probably going to change, so, yes, the other change we talked about is the number of data points available is increasing really fast, so there's a lot more things we didn't know until there's a big red alert. Now we would know way ahead of time. This is about to happen. So, yes, the system will become more and more sophisticated, based on 100 data points rather than four, so it's able to do a lot more, be more proactive.
Speaker 1:Yes, it's really starting to get to the place that data is going to drive everything that we do, so the quality of that data becomes absolutely critical.
Speaker 2:That is so correct, Ren.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I went to a doctor a couple of days ago. Or I have an MRI, or I have a bone scanned, or I have blood work. Md Anderson is taking every medical record of every patient in America from the year 2000 to 2020, digitizing it such that you go in you're 77 years old, your BMI is 20, you're blah, blah, blah and you're almost going to have artificial intelligence do a diagnostic for us, which is exactly what you're talking about with the machine, isn't it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think in the medical, on the medical side, it's probably more advanced. It's getting closer and closer.
Speaker 1:It is getting closer and they're finding unbelievable things. That's the same. That's why I bring it. Use that as an illustration. What bothered me and I think you and I have talked about this in the 1800s, when the steam engine was replaced by the electric engine, it took a generation of leadership to be able to take advantage of the electric engine opportunities. I think we started the data dictionary, database management 50, 60 years ago and we're only now getting to the point that we're starting to be able to realize which is more than one generation. We're talking two or three.
Speaker 1:Ed Gordon, who writes with us, he's in Chicago, used to teach at Northwestern. He's got a doctorate in economics and a doctorate in history, which is kind of a weird combination. He's made the bold statement that by the year 2030, 50% of the American workforce will not have the skills necessary to hold a job. That's 80 million people. This tool you started out with training and that's a beautiful way of doing it. People in their jobs today don't have time, have not given themselves permission to have time for employee development. Companies are hiring people to fill specific skill needs and are having a hell of a time finding them. They're extremely hard-tongues. Very few of them are hiring people and training them to be able to do the job, which leads to higher employee retention, not just better employees. Your product can kind of short-circuit that in the short term, can't it? Because it's oral. They don't need anything. What do you want to know? Ask the thing, whatever the hell it is you want to know, and that's all you need to do and it'll give you back an answer.
Speaker 2:Yes, I think it helps with parts of it. It'll eventually evolve to more complex tasks, which we have as well. Now I say which machine needs GM, like you mentioned? Give me the parts, or if I get a code, the full code, it can ask pretty soon what should I do about it? Right?
Speaker 1:Then when you get into machine utilization statistics on the back end, now the customer, the machine owner or the person who's using the machine because the rental companies are in the middle sometimes the man or woman who's using the machine. Their performance can be evaluated on that particular machine against other people operating on the same machine in similar jobs.
Speaker 2:Yes, you can. You can. Well, the future, of course, is autonomous. You don't have that problem anymore. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:I find this amazing. As usual, you're out ahead of the pack again and I'm excited for you, and we'll get this podcast up early Anything that we can do to help promote your product other than what we're doing.
Speaker 2:I think letting people know is great. So we believe that AI is going to be a main driver for productivity gain the next three to five years. We have a personal computer, a cell phone, internet, so it's a huge driver. It's going to make a big, big difference. So that's what we're investing heavily for our customers. I think it'll make a difference for them.
Speaker 1:Okay, so what languages do you have currently, or what languages can you have?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so right now we have English and Spanish, but any language can be added. We will be adding languages where we have customers, so French and Portuguese and others will come.
Speaker 1:So I was just thinking about Europe. So if I've got clients that are French and Europe and French and Quebec or Canada will use the same French language, are you going to have two Frenches, one for Canada, one for?
Speaker 2:France as many as you want. So once we do two, we can do any. Basically, it's just a matter of study at this point.
Speaker 1:Are you using Artifices on Talents through the translation?
Speaker 2:Yeah, not art, but yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, we did a similar thing and it's getting better and better and better the translations.
Speaker 2:Yes, especially context driven right. So it is a defined context for what you do and what we do. We're not talking about the world. We're talking about a very specific set of things that do very well.
Speaker 1:What have we missed in talking about fleet management? What have we missed? Have we covered everything?
Speaker 2:I think we've done very, very well. As usual around you, you do such a great job. One thing that I think has been on top of my mind is what you said about data. A lot of people get excited about AI, as they should be. We are too, but AI can only be built on clean data. So garbage in garbage out Now, garbage in garbage out in faster speed. So, yeah, if anybody want to start, you can use some of the AI features already, but always be aware to make sure your data is clean, and if that's not done right, the AI will give you interesting answers.
Speaker 1:Yeah, very much, so that's a big argument that everybody's going through right now with chat, gpd, using a timeframe of data and social media. It's there forever and a lot of it's misleading. So if it's dealer data on sales, on part history or bill paying patterns, that's easy. But where you're going through the world now is on the inspections and the fault codes and the telematics and the fluid analysis and saying, oh, watch out for this, watch out for that. It's much more precise than this big fire hose that's coming at us about. You know where's the best place to go to eat. You know it's very much so.
Speaker 1:Yes, it's contextual.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, limited, and it could be anywhere in the world, anywhere you've got satellite or internet connectivity. As long as you're connected to the internet, you can do this.
Speaker 1:Okay, okay, month by month you can do. Contractor, how do you do?
Speaker 2:In general our people like month to month, month by month they are. Some customers prefer to pay annually and those are. Our sales side will handle all that Okay.
Speaker 1:As usual, my friend, you've done a great job. I think this product is going to take off like a rocket. It's wonderful. So thank you so much, dale. I think this has been a really informative conversation and, to the audience out there, I hope you pay attention to this Dale, as usual, is leading the parade and listen to this a couple of times and have a look at the blogs and check his company out. This is something that I think is really beneficial to everybody. So thank you for listening. Thank you, dale, for participating and we'll see you soon at the next Candid Conversation.
